From the book
Alcibiades II
Plato · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordArchelaus is called tyrant of the Macedonians.
- In Alcibiades IIThe lover is killed by the beloved who expects to become a tyrant and a happy man.
- In this editionNote 10 records Archelaus’ death in 399 BC, after Alcibiades’ death in 404.
- A place to readDesire for tyranny is illustrated through the beloved’s murder of Archelaus.
Meaning
Archelaus is called tyrant of the Macedonians. Ta paidika denotes his beloved, while erastēs is the lover. Socrates’ story makes the beloved’s desire for tyranny match Archelaus’ desire for him, then turns both attachments into the occasion of death.
Use in the book
The lover is killed by the beloved who expects to become a tyrant and a happy man. The new ruler holds power only three or four days before being killed through another plot. The narrative compresses attainment and catastrophe so that possession of the sought object cannot be mistaken for secure fulfilment of the end, happiness.
The erotic symmetry is deliberately sharp. Archelaus loves a person; the beloved loves the position that the lover holds. What looks like success in one relation becomes exposure in another. This prepares an implicit contrast with the last scene, where erotic rivalry is attached to advice, care and prospective education rather than to the murderous capture of office.
The story is presented as recent news that Alcibiades cannot have missed, with a Homeric tag meaning yesterday and the day before. That immediacy is dramatically effective but historically impossible on the edition’s chronology. It should be read as a feature of the work’s problematic construction, not repaired by inventing another Archelaus or a different interlocutor.
Places to read
Translation in this edition
Note 10 records Archelaus’ death in 399 BC, after Alcibiades’ death in 404. It contrasts Diodorus 14.37.6, where Craterus strikes him accidentally in a hunt, with Aristotle, Politics 5.10, 1311b8–20, which gives a deliberate attack by Crataeus with Hellanocrates. The dialogue itself leaves the beloved unnamed; the variants should not be merged into one uncontested account.